charles perrault the sleeping beauty in the wood

The original good fairy puts the entire court and Brier-Rose’s family to sleep and grows a wall of vicious thorns to protect the princess in her slumber. When the princess touches the spindle out of curiosity, she immediately collapses into her century-long sleep. For the record, this woman has no ill intentions toward the princess, but Brier-Rose does find her. The king and queen still burn all the spinning wheels to escape the prophecy, but somehow a random spinster woman in a remote tower doesn’t hear the royal decree and continues to use a spindle. Harsh.īut one good fairy softens the blow by changing the death sentence to one hundred years of sleep. She realizes the royals’ insult because there are only twelve golden place settings for the fairies, and she proceeds to curse the little princess to prick her finger on a spindle and die at age fifteen. Here there are twelve good fairies and one unlucky number thirteen. In the Grimms’ version, the queen finds out she’s pregnant when a talking crab (sometimes a frog) emerges from her bathwater to share the happy news. And one slighted fairy gets left off the guest list. We all know how it starts: a king and queen throw a grand birthday party for their long-awaited princess. “Little Brier-Rose” may be darker than Disney, but it’s among the tamest of the Grimms’ collection and heavily inspired the movie.

For Once, the Grimms’ Version Ain’t So Bad And extremely icky in every sense of the word. This story makes my top ten list of fairy tales, but you might not know. I’m a HUGE fan of Sleeping Beauty, both the fairy tale and the movie adaptation that’s oh so familiar. Especially if all your loved ones are snoozing alongside you and everybody stays young, why not embrace a little beauty sleep? Still though, the concept of a ravishing princess frozen in time in her castle is such a captivating portrait that I understand why her story is so timeless IRL. This means that my best writing happens between 9:00 pm and 3:00 am, which does absolutely nothing for my already terrible sleeping genes.Ĭoming from that context, I really don’t think a 100-year sleeping curse sounds that bad. Aside from being a busy person, I’ve had recurrent insomnia since I was eight years old, and I’m a proud night owl. I think I speak for adults everywhere when I say that I don’t get enough sleep.

Charles perrault the sleeping beauty in the wood